Electric vehicle charging stations (sometimes referred herein as “charging stations”) are used for charging electric vehicles (e.g., electric battery powered vehicles, gasoline/electric battery powered vehicle hybrid, etc.). Charging stations may be located in designated charging locations (e.g., similar to locations of gas stations), parking spaces (e.g., public parking spaces and/or private parking space), at residences, etc. A user typically plugs a charging cable connected to a charging station into their electric vehicle for charging.
Charging stations can be designed to support different current levels and charging cables (the cables that connect the electric vehicle with a port of the station) can be rated at different current levels. For example, some charging cables may be rated at 16 Amps while other charging cables may be rated at 32 Amps. Hazardous conditions and equipment damage/failure may occur if the ampere capacity (ampacity) of a charging cable is exceeded (e.g., a charging cable rated at 16 Amps is used to carry 32 Amps).
Some charging stations have been designed with a physical switch, jumper, or rotary dial that allows a user or installer to set the maximum current that can be supplied by the station. This allows the user/installer to set the maximum amperage output to not exceed the ampacity of the expected charging cable to be used. However, these physical switches, jumpers, or dials are typically not easily accessible. Also if a user changes their charging cable or a different user brings a different charging cable to use, the user will need to remember to check and possibly change the amperage setting of the station. Some charging stations are designed to infer the current capacity of the cable through coding resistors. However this requires extra pins to be included on the charging station to be able to infer the current capacity of the cable.